Summer vacation is officially finished for dealers all over the world, and many of them kicked off the fall season in New York this week at the Armory Show. For the second year in a row, the Armory Show was held in the Javits Center, lending the show far more space than it had previously. The fair has also grown dramatically since last year’s iteration, as more and more galleries return to business as usual.
Some dealers said sales hadn’t come as quickly as they’d hoped during the fair’s VIP preview on Thursday, and the crowds in the aisles seemed thinner than they’d been in pre-Covid editions. But a good number of people turned out for the occasion, including artist Judy Chicago, actor Paul Rudd, Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak, writer Roxane Gay, and collectors like Bernard Lumpkin, Beth Rudin DeWoody, and the couple Don and Mera Rubell.
Galleries appeared to greet the fair as a place to show off some of their more unconventional offerings. For those who wanted it, there were a good deal of fresh-to-market paintings and big, expensive-looking sculptures. Most of the art on view, however, tended to be more understated and less conventional.